No Forgiveness
by Aislinn Carter
Summary: Admiral Janeway reflects on why she made the very out of character decision to go back in time. Just a little something I found on my computer...a little j/c angsty. Let me know if I should continue.


Kathryn stared out the viewport as Voyager flew at high warp back to the hub. She sighed, looking back down at her cup of tea. _Maybe I should just go for it_, she thought wryly. _Pretty soon, I won't exist. Might as well enjoy myself. A cup of coffee isn't going to do much damage at this point._

But she sipped at the lukewarm tea, pushing thoughts of her former vice out of her mind. The stars sped by – or rather, Voyager sped past them…or maybe they sped past each other, was that how it worked? – as Kathryn contemplated her actions. Why the time police or whatever they were calling themselves nowadays hadn't showed up was beyond her, but she had come to the shaky conclusion that maybe her timeline wasn't supposed to have existed in the first place. It was a comforting thought when held up to her actions…it almost absolved her of guilt.

Admiral Kathryn Janeway…throwing away a timeline to suit her own needs.

She was sick.

The Doctor had told her as much, four months ago. A psychosis brought on by a dormant virus in her cerebral cortex. She hadn't let him get much more out than that, but she wondered if it was the virus from New Earth. Wouldn't that be poetic?

She had wiped his knowledge of the psychosis. She couldn't have him committing her to Starfleet Psych and ruining all her plans.

She had so many plans.

Kathryn realized that she had been unconsciously playing with the chain under her neckline. Pulling it out of the top of her uniform, she opened the tiny locket and sighed at the picture within. "He was supposed to be mine…" she whispered. "I won't let him go again."

_"Did you send her on that mission on purpose?"_

_Kathryn looked up, startled. A figure stood in the shadows of her quarters…she didn't have to see him to know who he was. "How did you get in here?" She hadn't even heard the doors open._

_"I've been sitting here as long as you've been in here. Watching you."_

_"I've been here for twenty minutes."_

_"I know."_

_She took a deep breath to calm her racing pulse. He had been…irrational, over the past two weeks. She didn't blame him, of course. She had been waiting for this confrontation._

_"Why don't you come out of the shadows and sit down." She said harshly. "And stop sneaking around."_

_Chakotay came into the light, his handsome face twisted by anger and grief. "Sneaking around? You mean like you've been doing?"_

_"What are you talking about?"_

_In one fluid motion he was in front of her, pulling her up by her arms, his hands in a vice-like grip on her shoulders. She was barely able to gasp before he began shaking her._

_"You know what I'm talking about!" he hissed. "You didn't want me, but you couldn't let anyone else have me!"_

_Kathryn gripped his waist with her hands and kneed him, succeeding only in planting her knee in his thigh. They struggled for a moment before she broke free of his grasp and smacked her fist into his jaw. Incensed, he reached out for her again, before she kicked out and swept his feet out from under him. She straddled him, holding his arms above his head as they glared at each other._

_"I won't report this to security, Chakotay, although clearly you belong in the brig. But I know you're in mourning, so I'm going to let it slide. This time."_

_"Oh, aren't you just the saintly Captain Janeway." Chakotay wrenched his hands out of her grasp and pushed her off of him, causing her to tumble to the floor. She stood up as he brushed past her, stopping in front of the viewport and smacking his hand on the bulkhead. "You couldn't just let me be happy, could you? You had to make me just as miserable as you."_

_"I sent Seven on an away mission the same way I would send anyone else," Kathryn said hotly. "I'm insulted you would think otherwise."_

_"You took her from me."_

_Kathryn, after three years of keeping her feelings to herself and smiling and nodding and pretending, finally exploded. "You took each other from me!" she screamed. "You both got what you deserved."_

_The statement hung in the air. Kathryn, mortified that her true feelings were revealed not only to Chakotay but to herself, stood in shock with her hand over her mouth. Slowly, Chakotay turned to her, his eyes wide with disbelief._

_"What?" he whispered._

_She lowered her hand, "You both took away two of my closest friends," she whispered. "I don't have Tuvok anymore. I don't have anyone. You were my best friend and she was…"_

_"She was your project," Chakotay spat out at her. "And I was your lapdog!"_

_"No!" She shouted. "You don't know me at all! She was my friend, too. She was the closest thing I had to a child of my own. And that's what she was, Chakotay, a child!"_

_"And for that she deserved to die?"_

_"I didn't kill her! I didn't want her to die! I wanted to turn back time and stop you from ever laying a hand on her, from ever speaking a word to her. But I never wanted her dead," Kathryn finished tearfully. "I loved her. You think you're the only one mourning her? I loved her longer than you did. I didn't just lose you to her, I lost her to you."_

_He stared at her. "You've barely spoken to either of us outside of our duties in three years. Your hatred is not unknown."_

_"I hated the circumstances…not the players."_

_"You hate me," he said scornfully. "Don't lie and pretend otherwise."_

_"I do hate you!" she shouted. "The only people – the _only_ people – on this ship who I could feel free to almost be myself around were you, Tuvok and Seven. You took up with her to punish me!"_

_"For what?"_

_"For not loving you!"_

_His face looked stricken. "I knew you didn't love me," he said quietly. "But you don't have to rub it in."_

_"You said you would always take my burden. You lied. You made my burden greater."_

_"You remember that?" he said, surprised._

_"Of course I do," she edged closer to him. "I didn't know Seven was going to die. I never would have sent her if I had. I wish you would know that."_

_The anger seamed to leak out of him at her forlorn expression. He sighed. "Maybe we should sit down…and speak our minds, for once. I don't think we have anything to lose at this point."_

_She nodded after a moment's thought, and they sat at opposite ends of the couch. He rubbed a hand over his face and began to speak without looking at her. "Three years ago, you found out I was seeing Seven."_

_"You couldn't even tell me yourself," she said harshly. "I had to find out from overhearing Lieutenant Chapman and Crewman Peters."_

_"I'm sorry for that. I should have talked to you, and I didn't. It was my mistake," he hesitated. "I knew the moment you knew. Your face…your eyes, they changed. You shut off. You would avoid us. You shut yourself off, Tuvok being your only companion. Then he got sick."_

_Kathryn's eyes welled up with tears as she thought of her old friend, now confined to quarters, ranting and raving in his own world. "And then I had no one."_

_"You chose to close us out. Seven and I didn't want our friendships with you to end."_

_She stared at him in amazement. "You thought I could be friends with you while you were with her?"_

_He narrowed his eyes. "Why couldn't you?" he asked, his voice dangerously low. "Come on. Give me the reason."_

_Her hands trembled in her lap. She recalled his words…they really had nothing to lose at this point. "I always thought," she said, looking down. "That when we got home, you and I…you and I could be together."_

_"I know you thought that. I could tell."_

_"Then why couldn't you wait?" she whispered._

_"You gave me nothing in all these years. You gave me no reason to wait. Was the occasional hug or kiss too much to ask? A loving word every now and then? An affirmation that I wasn't waiting in vain?"_

_"As captain I…"_

_"As captain you had an obligation to your crew to be their friend, to show them that you're human. You can't spend decades with people and not show them who you are. It's rude. Being with me would have shown them you were human and showed them they were free to be happy, as well. You set a terrible example, Kathryn."_

_The tears spilled down her cheeks. It was the first time he had called her by her name in years._

_"I'm so lonely," she choked out. _

_"It's the way you've made yourself."_

_She stared down. "Maybe a part of me did hope something would happen to her," she said softly. "Maybe I did hate her."_

_He was quiet for a moment. "Should I forgive you?"_

_Her head snapped up. "I can never really forgive you."_

_He stood up. "Then I guess we have nothing else to say. I didn't wait and I won't wait again. My wife, my future, is dead. You can't know my pain."_

_She waited until he was nearly to the door. "You never loved her…the way you loved me."_

_He stood there, stock still. Then he left._

Kathryn chuckled as she remembered that particular scene. Maybe she hadn't purposely sent Seven to her death, but she couldn't pretend it wasn't a relief not to have to watch them play the happy couple anymore. She knew Chakotay wasn't blissfully happy, and she sometimes thought perhaps Seven wasn't either. But they were content with each other. And they certainly didn't mind showing it.

And then Seven was dead. And Kathryn didn't have to deal with it anymore.

No, she just had to deal with Chakotay, the manic depressive.

His moods became erratic. Half the time he was perfectly civil, other times he would argue with her in front of the crew. Several more times he became violent with her, but she never reported it. He couldn't stand to be around her, yet he couldn't stay away. It became so that she expected him to be lurking in the shadows of her quarters, to hurl accusations at her along with him begging her to love him. The years passed, and they became lovers, as she always half expected they would, but it was an angry sort of passion. Nights spent hissing insults at each other as they tore at each other became the norm. He never stayed the night, and she never wanted him to. They hated each other, and yet, they were obsessed with each other.

If the crew knew, they never indicated it. In the last years of their journey, there was a shift in their relationship. It started innocently enough. One night he didn't insult her as they…well, it couldn't be called making love, that was for sure. Then another night, he kissed her tenderly. Without meaning to, they fell into a routine of reviewing crew reports together, the way they had once upon a time. Seven had been dead for years by then. She had been dead for far longer than she had even been aboard the ship. Wounds had healed, but the bitterness remained. Their relationship improved, but could never truly move forward. And she could never forgive him, anyway. He hadn't waited. He had stolen her friends from her. There could be no forgiveness. Only angry passion and quiet companionship.

And he never really forgave her.

Some nights, he would taunt her, telling her about the children he imagined he and Seven would have had, about the life Kathryn had stolen from him. "My future," he said softly into her ear as he led a trail of fire down her body with his hands. "You murdered my future, and now I have no one. I don't love you anymore, Kathryn, I hate you."

"Nooooo…" she breathed. "You don't."

And he never corrected her.

So here she sat, all these years later and all those years before, sitting in the guest quarters that would someday belong to one of the Kesellian refugees who would join the voyage...these _were_ Danden's quarters, weren't they? Well, in any case, they weren't _her_ quarters. This wasn't where she belonged, but it was where she had to be.

She tucked the locket containing his picture back under her neckline as she heard the door chime. "Come."

Her heart jumped into her throat as Chakotay entered. She had worked with him since her arrival, of course, but had taken great pains to make sure she wasn't alone with him. She doubted he noticed. He wasn't noticing the Captain Janeway from his own time, let alone a future version. She had nearly thrown up when she saw him and Seven smiling at each other during a briefing yesterday. It was sickening. He was acting like an adolescent.

"Commander," she said, pasting a fake smile on her face. "What can I do for you?"

_"Feel like having lunch?"_

_"I'd love to, but I've already made plans. Rain check?"_

_"Absolutely."_

Kathryn felt sick to remember that conversation, now that she knew who he'd really made plans with that day. _Love to, my ass,_ she thought bitterly. _And me with that big grin on my face. Absolutely. Ugh._

He looked uncomfortable. "I wondered if I might speak to you for a moment."

"If my memory serves me correctly, you haven't spoken all that much to Captain Janeway recently, so why would you want to speak to any version of her?"

She mentally kicked herself for letting that slip. The look on his face told her he wasn't going to let that one go.

"I wanted to talk to you about the future. Nothing specific…there are a few things I need to know."

_In for a penny…_ "What is it, Chakotay? You want to know if there's any hope for you and your captain, so that you can feel free to pursue your little Borgette? Feel free. You have my permission. I insist."

His mouthed dropped open and his expression was one of utter shock. "You…you know about Seven?"

She stared at him in disgust. "I'm from the _future_. I swear, sometimes I wonder how you get your boots on in the morning without someone assisting you."

His face reddened. "I don't know why you're so hostile to me, Admiral…"

"No, you wouldn't know."

"…But I came here hoping to have an adult conversation…"

"I'm sure, considering that's something an emotional adolescent like Seven can't possibly provide."

"That's enough." Chakotay said sharply.

"Don't speak to me like that, I outrank you."

He shook his head in confusion. "Kathryn…"

"No," she said. "I think we both know I'm no longer Kathryn to you."

He was silent, staring at her. "I must have hurt you very badly."

"That's an understatement. But we hurt each other. We spend the next sixteen years at each other's throats. Both on the bridge…and in the bedroom."

His jaw well and truly dropped at that comment. "Bed-bedroom?" he stammered.

Kathryn waved her hand. "Oh, don't read too much into it. It's never anything but hate sex, really. We never have the happily ever after either of us ever dreamed of. You gave up first." She leaned forward. "Chakotay, even if you get back tomorrow, I don't know that I want you anywhere near her. You spell nothing but heartache for her, Chakotay. You are her undoing. Stick to your Barbie doll and leave Kathryn to live her own life."

"I wasn't going to…"

"You will."

"I am seeing Seven of Nine," Chakotay said harshly. "The fact that you know that leads me to believe the relationship will be successful. I've committed myself to her. If you know anything about me – and I would think that you do – you'll know that I honor my commitments."

"You will get home and you will toss Seven aside for Kathryn. You say I know you. You're right. You'll destroy both of them."

"Wait…you said we become lovers."

Kathryn snorted. "Such a pretty term for something so ugly."

He frowned. "Se…Seven and I don't last?"

"Seven dies," Kathryn said bluntly, no longer caring about revealing a timeline that wouldn't exist now. "Three years from now. You'll be married to her by then, and you will spend the rest of your life blaming me. You'll always love me, Chakotay, but you'll hate me all the same."

He had paled, his golden skin ashen now. "Why would I blame you? Did you…"

She shrugged. "Maybe, deep inside, I sent her on that away mission hoping she wouldn't come back. But there was no indication that anything out of the ordinary would occur. I think I just hoped on every away mission she went on that she wouldn't come back. We lost another crew member as well that day, but I wasn't allowed to focus on anything except your precious Seven. I couldn't even comfort Nao-" Kathryn cut off, her mouth snapping shut. Chakotay titled his head and his eyes widened.

"Naomi?" he asked quietly. "Was it Samantha who died that day?"

"Yes," Kathryn snapped. "But you made such a scene on a daily basis that all anyone could focus on was you and Seven. You made it all about you, Chakotay. I don't think you ever took the time to talk to Naomi. She was a young girl, a teenager in appearance but still just a child at heart. After Samantha died, she had nothing. Oh, everyone was there for her, there's no doubt of that. I tried to be a mother to her…maybe we were somehow using each other to replace what we lost, I don't know. I had lost Seven, who for so long was like my daughter, until you selfishly took that from me." Kathryn sighed. "Naomi was twenty-two years old when we made it home. Her father…they had spoken over the years, of course, but they didn't know each other and never would. She didn't even have him give her away at her wedding…she had Tom do it." She smiled at Chakotay's look of surprise. "Yes, Naomi got married. She married Icheb. They have a little girl. I don't know what will happen now, whether or not they'll still end up together, but I have to believe that two people who loved each other as much as they did have to be able to find their way to one another," she sighed. "We were really all she had…you hurt her terribly when you ignored her after her mother's death. She never really forgave you for that."

He squirmed, having the grace to look embarrassed. "I can't apologize for actions I haven't taken yet. But now that I know, I will endeavor to make sure I don't make the same mistakes."

"I hope so. You acted like you were the only one who had ever lost someone. It was amazing. You could lose nearly your entire family and go on with your life, and yet this loss, of this woman who wasn't even the love of your life and who you hadn't even known a decade, this loss unraveled you. I half thought she must have reprogrammed your brain to make you act like that."

Chakotay stopped short of saying whatever he was about to say, a look of sheer horror dawning on his face. "Could she do that?" he whispered.

Kathryn smirked. She had forgotten his deep set fear of being assimilated. How he ended up with a Borg, she'd never know.

"No, I don't think so. But you never recovered from her death. And that wasn't like you. You're not the kind of person to sink into your own grief like that. That's more my MO. "

"Maybe it was just the last straw…after everything I had already lost."

"Maybe," she agreed softly. "But it's something that will never happen now. Once Voyager gets home, things will be different."

"Have you told her? Or…Kathryn?"

"I haven't told either of them," she said quietly. "I will if I have to…to use as leverage if the captain decides to do something stupid. But otherwise, I'll keep it to myself," she looked him in the eye. "And so should you. If I do decide to tell one of them, and they bring it up, act like it's the first you're hearing of it. Otherwise, keep it to yourself."

"Why have you told me?"

"Oh, for old times sake," she said sarcastically. "I do so like to see you in emotional agony."

He regarded her with sadness. "We were never friends again, were we?"

"Not after you destroyed us, no."

His face hardened. "Maybe if you had just showed me a reason to stay true to you…for you to care this much tells me you cared for _me_, that maybe you loved me…did you?"

"You know I did," she scoffed.

"You never showed it. You gave me nothing in all these years. You gave me no reason to wait. Was the occasional hug or kiss too much to ask? A loving word every now and then? An affirmation that I wasn't waiting in vain?"

She blinked back tears as the same words that spilled from his counterpart spilled now from him. "True love waits. What we had…it couldn't have been true love. You gave up on me, and with the worst person imaginable. So please, go back to Earth and leave Kathryn alone. Let her find happiness with someone else."

"That can't really be what you want. Not if we have a chance."

She turned from him to look out the view port. "We have no chance, Chakotay. She loves you, but she'll never love you the way you loved her. My Chakotay and I, we had bitter lust. That's about it. She used to love you, don't get me wrong. If I had come back a few years ago, maybe you could have been together. But it's too late now. Just make a life with Seven, far away from me."

"But…"

"Go," she said, the one word tipped with venom. "And don't repeat any of this."

She heard him sigh. If there was one thing he did know about her, it was when she had effectively ended a conversation. She didn't turn around until she heard the doors open and close. He was gone.

She shook her head and ran a hand through her hair. It was a lie…of course she loved him, and always had. But fate had not been kind to them the first time around. Now she was cheating fate, and she didn't want to chance what fate would do to them the second time around.

She bit her lip. Had she done the right thing? Or had she just denied herself what could be the greatest love of her life?

"Well, I've made plenty of mistakes in my life," she said to herself. "No reason to stop now."


End file.
